Performance Dogs

We came to Performance Dogs (PD) with two dogs exhibiting very different behavioral issues. We adopted Stanley, our 3 yr. old bulldog/​pit mix, about 8 months ago. He came to us 20 pounds underweight, a vacant look in his eyes, an embedded collar and covered with acid burns from laying in his own waste for two years. Despite his history, he was an absolute love bug, great with people, dogs, cats and even our rats. As he regained his health and strength he started to exhibit extreme territorial dominance and some dog-​on-​dog aggression at our local dog park. Desperate, I started to search for trainers/​behaviorists in an around Williamsburg where we live. Many training programs simply refused to work with Stanley since he had exhibited aggression and those programs that specialized in aggression all utilize the shock collar. Expanding my search to Northern Virginia I was thrilled to discover PD. Not only do they accept ALL dogs but they employ a natural behavior modification technique.
We adopted our second dog, Chamella, about a year ago. She is an Asiatic wild dog from Borneo, the first in her lineage to live in a domestic environment, so it’s not surprising she has an intense prey drive and is a skilled escape artist. Chamella has escaped several times to chase large prey for 2 – 3 hours at a time. The more we called the deeper she disappeared into the woods and each time we were terrified we might never see her again. Thankfully, she always returned home but it was imperative we master the recall command so we attended a six-​week treat based training program but we never came close to mastering the recall command.
PD has transformed Stanley and Chamella completely. When we pull into the PD parking lot they transform into complete submission. At PD they can both walk off-​leash around multiple stimulus, Chamella has mastered the recall command on a 20 ft. lead and Stanley can be around multiple dogs without exhibiting aggression. At home, we’re still a work in progress but we’ll get there with the tools and training method PD has provided us. We highly recommend PD to anyone with a dog exhibiting behavioral challenges, even the most extreme form of aggression.

My dog never listed to me until I came to this place. They take the time to explain not only how to train your dog, but why their suggestions work. They understand your dog and how his brain works. Highly recommended.

We had Emma, a dobberman-​collie mix, since 2010 to help my husband recover from a motorcycle accident. She was his constant companion while he was on bedrest and helped him get motivated to get up for physical therapy, walks, etc.
She was such a sweet little puppy and brought us so much joy until we started to notice her aggressive behavior. We chalked it up to the fact that she was extremely protective of my husband. She would never bite anyone but would start barking and pulling. Seeing how she is a 75lb dog that looks like a dobberman and the social stigma associated with her breed, people started to give us «looks» and we would shy away from normal dog activities. We started to avoid dog parks; would strategically plan her walks for when we knew other dogs weren’t out and about; we would cross the street (literally) in order to avoid other dogs; we bought various collars and harnesses to attempt to «snap her out of it»; we never invited friends or family over; etc etc.
Luckily, it seemed the only place she would ‘behave’ was at her Doggie Daycare. Seeing how excited she would be pulling in, we figured we were doing the best thing we could for her. I can’t even start explain how much money we put into this daycare and scheduling we did around this particular daycare. We wanted her to be happy and we did everything we can to do this. Daycare always said she was the sweetest dog around and she never acted out. So we always assumed that it was just us and her instinct to protect us. I should mention that we also did training through this daycare and there was very little improvement. She would still lunge and pull often.
Fast forward to 2015. We were expecting our first child and decided to move to the suburbs. We were really nervous about this move since Emma’s daycare was right around the corner from where we currently living and it was just so convenient for us. Nevertheless, we knew this was the best thing for our family — more space, less money. Unfortunately, we lost our baby and decided to live with my parents for a while until we get our feet on the ground. I brought her over to my parents and this is where we drew the line.
She would not let my mom near my husband and would lunge towards her acting as if she was going to bite her. After years of dealing and brushing away her outbursts, I couldn’t take it anymore so that night, I researched training schools hoping that they would take her the next day… and they did!
We showed up to Performance Dogs and Steve immediately impressed me. He is not only enthusiastic and knowledgeable about his job, but he is also results oriented. He does not turn away any dogs and having lost hope in ever being able to live a normal life with Emma, we signed her up on the spot and she stayed with him for two weeks after that.
It has only been a month but we see drastic improvement with her. She started listening to our commands; she does not pull on us; she realizes who the alpha is and obeys. We utilize the modification techniques Steve taught us for when she reacts. One thing I really like about his school of thought is that Steve wants to stimulate the dogs aggressive behavior in order to fix it. He does not want to work around it like other training schools do. It is a work in progress and I’ll update this review as we go along, but trust me… you have to trust him.
It’s nerve wrecking at first, but you have to really embrace the training for your dog and yourself. Steve and his staff really know what they are talking about and the hardest part in all of us this is changing your behavior towards your dog.

I took my one year old Siberian Husky to Performance Dogs as a last resort in June of 2012. At the time Kody was exactly 1 year old. I had previously owned other dogs as well as Huskies, and considered myself to be an «experienced» dog owner. Kody was food aggressive, dog aggressive, extremely rough with my young children, and seemed to be untrainable.
We took training classes at Doptopia which helped him learn to sit for a treat and leave it. He was evaluated for play time so he could be socialized with other dogs and he wasn’t friendly with the staff or other animals. How could I socialize my young pup when he wasn’t allowed to be with other animals? After biting our babysitter, I called our veterinarian desperate to figure out what I needed to do. Kody was becoming more aggressive by the day.
My veterinarian suggested we use a behaviorist. The behaviorist was a joke and gave us no direction other than to expose Kody to more children at playgrounds and parks and put a pheromone collar on him as well as a pheromone air diffuser by his kennel? After getting no help from the behaviorist, my husband and I began having tough conversations about giving Kody to a rescue or even putting him to sleep. We didn’t want him to hurt anyone else, especially our own children and he was headed in that direction.
On one last late night Google search, I found Performance Dogs. I liked that Performance Dogs would pick up Kody up for individual training as well as coming to our house for a home visit to see Kody in his environment with our family. They also said WE needed to come for OUR training with Kody. It seemed like this was a well rounded approach that would address every aspect of his issues.
We signed up for SBM, social behavior modification program. Kody was picked up by a trainer twice a week for training with Stephen Mace, the owner or Performance Dogs, as well as his staff. He did pack walks with other dogs to get exercise, socialization and learn basic commands.
The home visit helped them get to know Kody more as well as the members of our family. They wanted to see his interactions with us and showed us what boundaries we needed to set in order to help Kody understand his place in our family.
Our family also participated in just a few Saturday training sessions with Kody at Performance Dogs. We were amazed to see Kody peacefully interacting with other dogs at the camp, and we were also trained in how to handle Kody around the people and dogs there and elsewhere. This one on one time we had with the staff was such a great learning tool! Kody was behaving well for the staff according to reports but seeing it for ourselves was the proof we needed! He quickly learned that we were «all on the same page» in terms of what he was allowed to do, and our commands and training were consistent. We had command and control of our dog for the first time! The Saturdays were a real bonding experience! The more Kody went to Performance Dogs, the better his behavior was. We looked forward to Saturday training sessions because it was so rewarding for us to see the change that had taken place. We also continued to get guidance to ensure we were being the leaders that Kody needed us to be.
Within months, Kody was a well behaved, well loved part of our family. He graduated from the SBM program and he has continued to go for workouts over the past 3 years as well as boarding when we go on vacation. We would never consider boarding Kody with anyone else! Kody enjoys pack walks and swimming outdoors while he is there. There are other facilities that offer boarding with play or swimming but they are indoor. Kody loves going and sometimes doesn’t want to get in the car when we pick him up!
I highly recommend Steven Mace and Performance Dogs! After being a client for 3 years, it is without hesitation that I tell everyone I know about our experience. Kody is the most well behaved dog we have ever owned. He is actually a sweetheart! What a change from where we started. Stephen Mace puts his heart into his work every day and gets such satisfaction from helping dogs and their owners find that special human/​animal connection and bond. He goes above and beyond to help you. (Example going to the vet with us for an appointment) If you want to own a well behaved companion that your dearly enjoy and love, Performance Dogs is the place to help train YOU and YOUR DOG!

I found my boots. So I give PD, that they did not steal anything…

I took our dog, Bandit, to Performance Dogs after he had attacked another neighborhood dog. Needless to say, I was very upset by the incident, and Steve very graciously allowed me to come for an evaluation of Bandit the very same day. I could tell immediately that Steve knew his stuff regarding dogs, and my dog could tell, too. I signed up on the spot.
After completing the training program, Bandit has become a much better companion for us. Much of the training was actually for us humans — because Steve had to teach us how to provide the leadership that Bandit needed in our household. We really appreciated the Saturday training sessions, during which Steve and his trainers worked with us one-​on-​one so that we would understand how to use appropriate commands with Bandit. We were favorably impressed with all of the staff members there, who were always friendly, knowledgeable, and responsive to our needs.
As a result of the instruction and advice we received at Performance Dogs, Bandit is now a very well-​behaved dog, and we can even trust him off the leash for a game of fetch in our neighborhood meadow. Furthermore, the dog-​handling skills that we learned at Performance Dogs will help us with any other dogs we might adopt in the future, so the money we spent was a great investment.